No. He was simply going to be more of Sam Dodsworth than he had ever been. He wasn’t going to let Europe make him apologetic. Fran would certainly get notions; want to climb into circles with fancy-dress titles. Oh, Lord, and he was so fond of her that he’d probably back her up! But he’d fight; he’d try to get her happily home in six months.
So!
He knew now what he’d do—and what he’d make her do!
He became happy again, and considered the Londoners with a friendly, unenvious, almost superior air … and discovered that his hat was just as wrong as his evening clothes. It was a good hat, too, and imported; a Borsalino, guaranteed by the Hub Hatters of Zenith to be the smartest hat in America. But it slanted down in front with too Western and rakish an air.
And, swearing that he’d let no English passersby tell him what he was going to wear, he stalked toward Piccadilly and into a hat-shop he remembered having seen. He’d just glance in there. Certainly they couldn’t sell him anything! English people couldn’t sell like Americans! So he entered the shop and came out with a new gray felt hat for town, a new brown one for the country, a bowler, a silk evening hat, and a cap, and he was proud of himself for having begun the Europeanization which he wasn’t going to begin.
For lunch he invited Hurd—Mr. A. B. Hurd, manager of the London agency of the Revelation Motor Company, an American who had lived in England for six years.
Fran was fairly amiable about meeting Mr. Hurd, for the hotel management had given her the suite which she had demanded, with a vast sitting-room in blue and gold.
“I was cross, last evening,” she said to Sam. “I felt kind of lonely. I was naughty, and you were so sweet. I’ll be good now.”
But she couldn’t help being a little over-courteous to Hurd when he came in.
Mr. Hurd was a round-faced, horn-spectacled, heavy-voiced man who believed that he had become so English in manner and speech that no one could possibly take him for an American, and who, if he lived in England for fifty years, would never be taken for anything save an American. He looked so like every fourth man to be found at the Zenith Athletic Club that traveling Middlewesterners grew homesick just at sight of him, and the homesicker when they heard his good, meaty, uninflected Iowa voice. He was proud of being able to say that the “goods vans with the motors were being shunted,” though if he was in a hurry he was likely to observe that the “goods vans with the autos were by God being switched.”
His former awe of Sam and of the elegance of Fran was lost now in his superiority as one who certainly did know his England and who could help these untraveled friends.
He bounded into their suite, shook hands, and crowed:
“Well, by Jove, d’you know you could’ve doggone near knocked me down with a feather when I found you folks were in town! I say, if you’d just told us you were coming, we’d’ve been down to the depot with the town brass band! By golly, d’you know, Chief, I’m almost sorry we’re going in with the U.A.C. It’s always been a pleasure to have a straight-shooter like you for boss, and all of us hope that you’re going with the U.A.C. yourself. Say, maybe we aren’t shoving over what we got left of the old Series V on the Britishers, too! Now I don’t know what plans you folks have, and the one thing we learn here in England about handling our guests—”
(Sam wondered if Hurd noticed the sudden rigidity with which Fran received the suggestion that she could ever be considered a guest of Mr. A. B. Hurd.)
“—is not to bother ’em, like the Americans do, but let ’em alone when they want to be let alone. Now this noon you folks come grab lunch with me at the Savoy Grill—say, I’ve got the waiters there trained, and I’ll tell ’em they’re not to treat you like ordinary Americans—they all think I’m English; they think I’m kidding ’em when I tell ’em I’m a good Yank and proud of it! And then tomorrow evening I’ll get Mrs. Hurd to come in from the country—we’re living at Beaconsfield, got practically an acre there—and we might all take in a show. You folks will enjoy the English stage—real highbrow actors that know how to talk the English language, not a lot of these New York roughnecks. And then maybe next weekend you might like to come down and stay with us, and I’ll drive you around and show you some real English landscape, and you’ll meet some of the real sure’nough English. There’s a very high-class Englishman living right near us, in fact he’s a knight, Sir Wilkie Absolom, the famous solicitor, that I know your good lady will fall for hard, Chief. Him and I play golf together right along, and I tell you he’s a real democratic guy—he’ll take you in and treat you just like you were English yourselves!”
“I think, Mr. Hurd,” said Fran, “that we’d better be starting off and—” (So sweetly; as to a maid whom she was going to discharge come Saturday.) “—we can discuss plans on the way. You’re very kind to bother with us, but I’m afraid that just these next few days we’re going to be rather horribly busy. We’ve already, unfortunately, accepted a weekend invitation from some old friends—you see, I lived here a long time, before I was married—and tomorrow evening we’re dining out. But now let’s go and have lunch, and Sam and you will have such a nice chance to discuss all the details of the U.A.C. Just forget that I’m there.”
And Hurd was unconscious that anything
